billclintoncamein and said we are way too left and have to moderate our positions and that is where the democratic leadership council came in. there are a lot of democrats that were very upset with bill clinton during the late '80s and early '90s. they obviously won the white house back in 1992 because they nominated a moderate to center democrat that could win independents and women and people of color and so forth? >> there is an article that the tea party is over. that obviously is the right of the right fringe element of the republican party. very hard line. they certainly had a bigger voice when more of those supported members were elected to congress in 2010, but is that accurate? do you think the tea party is over for extreme conservea tichl? >> time will tell. clearly last tuesday voters didn't express happiness or support for the tea party very clearly. the question will be whether the republican party tries to move as jonathan just described, kind of moderates their message or still beholden to that kind of extreme part of the party? we're starting to see a few dfrs say we

,billclintonwonbig. you know who else won big? me. when i went back in january of 1997, was i willing to work any more after bill clinton won the election than before? no. a lot of republicans that won an election in the house as well. i just say that to say the president can go ahead -- and to follow up on david, he could do brinkmanship if he wants. a lot of these guys have spent the last couple years in the house standing up to the president going after him aggressively. he got re-elected. >> and the government's organized the same way. >> yes. if the president wants to engage in brinksmanship, he can. >> the message they took from their own re-election in their district was go back to washington and fight the president. don't cooperate with what he wants to do. >> right. >> all right, josh -- >> that's what i'm saying, brinksmanship seems to be short-sighted right now. i think instead of flying all across the country and spending taxpayer dollars on air force one and your security detail, could you just try inviting people over to the white house? >> he's doing that, too. >> and w

of our collective deliberations.asbillclintonmightsay, it's just arithmetic. in fact, this situation of a divided government has only two possible outcomes -- action based upon good faith compromise or no action resulting from political dead lock, and in my position, the latter, is not acceptable to the people of maine and to the people of the united states. we must find a way to act, because many of the problems before us, the debt and deficit is probably the best example, have a time fuse. the longer we avoid acting, the worse they get. in this case, no decision is itself a decision, and it is almost undoubtedly the wrong decision. the challenges before us are too great and the stakes are too high to allow partisan differents to keep us from finding common ground even on the most difficult issues, and i hope that in a small way, in a small way i may be able to act as a brim between the parties, an on -- bridge between the parties, an honest broker to help nudge us toward solutions. i talked to more than a dozen senators of both parties in the past three days and have been impressed